The invention relates to a flat panel display and in particular to a flat panel display capable of providing 2D and 3D images.
In a conventional stereoscopic or three-dimensional (3D) display, users are required to wear a device, such as a shutter or polarization glasses, that ensure left and right views are seen by the correct eye. Such a stereoscopic display, however, suffers from the drawback that the viewers must wear, or be very close to, the device to separate left and right eye views.
Recently, many stereoscopic display designs, such as lenticular and parallax designs have been proposed which do not require use of shutter or polarization glasses. In these stereoscopic display devices, specific optical devices such as lenticular lens or parallax barriers are generally disposed on the front or rear sides of image display devices. For example, a simple stereoscopic image display device can be easily constituted by a combination of such parallax barriers and a two-dimensional (2D) display device, such as a liquid crystal display (LCD). Half the pixels of the display device radiate light only in directions seen by the left eye and half the pixels in directions seen by the right eye through the parallax barrier, creating twin-view stereoscopic images. Conventionally, the parallax barrier comprises a retarder which suffers from the drawback of difficult alignment between the LCD and the parallax barrier.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,157,424 discloses a 2D/3D image display, in which two LCDs are employed. One of the LCDs provides image information and the other parallax barrier image patterns. LCDS, however, suffer from the drawback of higher power consumption due to back light device.